Akharin Khabar: after Russia's victory, Ukraine will become useless to the West
The West needs to prepare for Russia's inevitable victory in Ukraine, Akharin Khabar writes. After that, Kiev will become useless for Europe and the United States, the author believes. The country will definitely not meet the criteria for either joining NATO or the European Union.
Two years have passed since the start of the military conflict in Ukraine, but, as on the first day of hostilities, the question remains relevant – who will be the true winner in this confrontation? So, John Mearsheimer, director of the World Politics program at the University of Chicago, known for his theory of "aggressive realism" in international relations studies, believes that the West needs to prepare for a likely, seemingly ugly, but nevertheless, victory for Russia in the war zone, after which Ukraine will turn into a useless state for the West, at least because it will definitely not meet the criteria for joining NATO, or, moreover, the European Union. But let's look for an answer to the question of the likely winner of the conflict, as if from a different point of view. That is, first of all, when determining the winner, we need to determine the coordinate system of this conflict.
The conflict in the coordinates of Russia and Ukraine
If we are talking about a proxy war, or an indirect war between Russia and the West, then the answers to our question about the winner may be different and will depend on the state and quality of the confrontation between Russia - the United States, Russia—NATO or Russia - the European Union. However, winners can also be looked for in the broader perspective of international relations, answering the following question: what benefits have other countries received and can still receive from this conflict in the Euro-Atlantic area, for example, China as a global superpower or even Saudi Arabia or the UAE as regional players in the Middle East?
Thus, we have to state that the question of the winners is a relative question, and, depending on the different geographical coordinates in which we consider the conflict, its scale will vary.
So, based on this preamble, if we consider the conflict between Russia and Ukraine specifically in the plane of these two countries, then now, two years after its beginning, we have the following. Russia managed to include the Zaporizhia, Kherson regions, Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics into its composition, both militarily and legally, and also effectively cut off Ukraine from access to the waters of the Sea of Azov. The latter turned out to be under almost complete control of Russia. And although these territorial changes, like what happened to Crimea in 2014, are not recognized by a significant part of the participants in the international system of relations, Ukraine has already lost part of its territory. And if Russia continues to achieve success and takes control of the Odessa region as well, Ukraine will lose access to the Black Sea, and this will mean that the country will lose contact with international waters. Russia will not only gain full control of the Sea of Azov, but will also completely secure the Crimean Peninsula from its western side. All transit trade routes along the Black Sea towards Turkey and other regions of the world will also be blocked, and trade along these routes will be possible only with the consent of Russia and with its assistance.
However, even if we imagine that the conflict will end with a ceasefire on the existing line of contact, any observer, looking at the geographical or political map of the world, will talk about Russia's victory. In other words, if we consider the conflict only in the coordinates of two directly conflicting parties, then on one side we will see Vladimir Putin, who, having held elections in the country exactly on schedule, remains in power for at least another six years. He also, despite the huge packages of sanctions, provided Russia with sustainable economic growth, to the extent that the country, by the end of 2023, entered the top five largest countries in the world in terms of its economic potential. And on the other side will be Vladimir Zelensky, who, having at his disposal huge packages of financial and military assistance, contrary to all promises, actually failed the counteroffensive widely announced in March 2023, failing to significantly change the situation on the fronts. This, in turn, led to his fundamental disagreements with the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny; information about their disagreements has been leaking to the media since last summer and ended with Zaluzhny writing in his article for The Economist that the counteroffensive had reached an impasse and progress should not be expected from the troops entrusted to him. Eventually, disagreements led to the resignation of Zaluzhny, and in February 2024 he was replaced by Alexander Syrsky, who previously commanded the land forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
However, there was another important reason for replacing Zaluzhny. The results of opinion polls showed that Zelensky's popularity as president and as a politician in general was steadily declining, while Zaluzhny's rating increased – his popularity rose to 84%. This is despite the fact that in polls he appeared not as a possible political rival of Zelensky, but simply as a general who, according to reputable Western sources, in recent months has argued that the continuation of the military conflict would cause irreparable harm to Ukraine, and that it was necessary, before it was too late, to enter into negotiations with Russia on a cease-fire and about achieving peace. But there is one main obstacle to this: in the fall of 2022, Zelensky signed a law according to which Ukraine does not have the right to conduct peace negotiations with Russia. At the same time, Zelensky refused to hold new presidential elections, which were supposed to take place after the expiration of his term of office in March 2023, arguing that it was impossible to hold elections while martial law was in effect in the country. This, in turn, led to the emergence of a new problem, which was warned by another well-known Ukrainian politician Vitali Klitschko: Ukraine is thus moving away from democracy and turning into an authoritarian state. In short, two years after the beginning of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, we can see that what Mearsheimer said is true if we want to answer the question of who is the winner of the conflict. At the same time, we will have to pay attention to the emergence of new variables after the end of the conflict on both sides, which may result in an aggravation of essential contradictions and mutual hatred.
The chess confrontation between Russia and America
Let's return to the main message of our article and look at the conflict from the point of view of a chess game between Washington and Moscow, if not an open war. Here we are dealing with Washington's proxy war against Russia, the purpose of which is to isolate the latter in the Euro-Atlantic area and weaken this country. It seems that Joe Biden and his team managed, through the Ukrainian crisis, to isolate Russia in the Euro-Atlantic area, in such a way that even if Donald Trump or a similar Republican of the 2016-2020 model comes to power in the White House, he will no longer be able to drive a wedge in relations between the United States and Europe to the extent that that Russia would turn into the big brother of the European Union. However, the paradox is that the price of this Biden policy may be the actual return of Donald Trump to a new presidential term, although the Democrats, whose fundamental leitmotif of the foreign policy concept is hostility with the Kremlin, are sure of one thing: between Russia and its former European partners, more or less inclined to cooperate with Moscow, such as Germany Italy, partly France, has now emerged such a great distance that it will be almost impossible to overcome, even if Trump comes to power again and begins to escalate a hostile agenda regarding the European Union.
Another point worth noting is that the Ukrainian crisis not only "prevented" Russia's rapprochement with a number of Western European states, but also led to the strengthening of NATO. But until recently, it was said that this alliance had lost its main goal, so much so that they even thought about closing it. As a result, now, even if the United States fades away or disappears altogether as a result of its internal crises, the role of Europe's older brother, as an alternative to the United States, can be intercepted by Great Britain, which will successfully continue the course of demonizing Russia, justifying the astronomical costs of financial and military assistance to Ukraine to the public opinion of continental Europe. Thus, if we interpret our question within the framework of game theory, then we are talking about a situation where there is a game without losing, or when both sides win, although the size of the winnings is different and has different weight categories.
Specifically, this was expressed in the fact that America actually managed to split Russia off from Western Europe, preventing, perhaps even for centuries, Moscow's rapprochement with the largest European countries. But Russia was able to expand and even strengthen the new alliances it once initiated on the basis of the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty in Asia, to the extent that new major players began to enter these organizations. Washington undoubtedly managed to stymie relations between Moscow and its traditional partners in Europe, but Russia was able to establish alliances with traditional US partners in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia or the UAE. Moreover, to the extent that in Moscow's dialogue with Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, terms such as "most important partners" or "strategic partners" began to sound - a thing that seemed unthinkable quite recently, some 10-15 years ago. Yes, the White House has frozen Russia's already almost established energy cooperation with Europe with the help of various packages of sanctions. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, itself the largest oil exporter, decides to purchase oil on a historical scale from Russia, the volume of economic cooperation between Russia and the UAE, one of the richest countries in the Middle East, has doubled, reaching $ 10 billion. And although almost insurmountable obstacles have arisen on the way of exporting Russian energy resources to Europe, exports to Asia are breaking historical records, and trade relations between Russia and China are breaking the $200 billion mark. Nevertheless, the architecture of European security, largely due to Washington's insistent wishes, has changed its outlines: the NATO bloc has moved one step further with the accession of Finland and Sweden, so that as a result, the borders of Russia and this military-political alliance have noticeably lengthened. But this same lengthening of borders promises problems for both Russia and the NATO alliance itself, which will have to focus its infrastructure on new frontiers.
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We also see how non-regional players such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, China or India saw the Ukrainian crisis as a profitable opportunity for themselves and used it in their national interests. At the same time, they said the right words at all international forums that, of course, they stand for peace and for an early political settlement of the conflict. By choosing a policy of neutrality regarding the conflict in Ukraine, they have significantly strengthened their image in the international arena, primarily in the field of fighting for "human rights". Xi Jinping put forward his plan for resolving the conflict, Riyadh held an international "peace forum", and with the mediation of Abu Dhabi, it was possible to achieve a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine in the largest volume. All these neutral parties have taken several successful steps to highlight their own efforts in the field of fighting for peace in the international arena. They were all welcome guests in Moscow, buying the goods they needed from Russia, including oil and diesel fuel at significant discounts, but at the same time they negotiated with Washington, taking full advantage of its contradictions with Moscow and also negotiating the necessary concessions for themselves.
There is no doubt that the conflict has actually reached the freezing stage, although there is no peace agreement and military operations are still ongoing. The conclusion of peace on the terms of one of the parties is hardly possible in the current paradigm, and the only desirable scenario is some kind of multilateral ceasefire agreements, like the Minsk Agreements of 2015. After that, the efforts of NATO and the United States to weaken and destabilize Russia will continue, while Russia will also welcome any consistent manifestation of disagreements within the North Atlantic Alliance itself.
In conclusion, I would like to say that Putin's recent interview with American journalist and former TV presenter Tucker Carlson showed that the Russian leader agrees to end the military conflict if the United States stops supplying weapons to Ukraine. This is more like a message to Donald Trump, a participant in the presidential race and the likely winner of the 2024 presidential election, that if he wins, the crisis in Ukraine may reach the ceasefire stage, and then at least there will be no need to spend new tens of billions of dollars so that Kiev can, even without the prospect of victory or any noticeable success, continue military operations.
* For the convenience of readers, the translation of the publication is provided with abbreviations